Their five-year age gap had been vast when they were children; Rok had been a baby when Grav got sent to the Ministry Education Center. When Rok joined him five years later, they were different people with little in common other than their parents. Then Grav graduated, and that was the last time they’d spoken or seen each other.
Grav would be thirty-three now.
The captain had finally stopped coughing and fallen asleep, but he wheezed in an alarming way and looked horrible. The captain wasashen, practically white, and he’d lost his hair. Rok ran a hand over the strip of bristles running from his forehead to the base of his skull.I still have mine.He checked no less than five times a day.
At least Capt. Xenyth is improving. He conducted the funerals.
When they were both in better health, he would broach the subject of trying to locate survivors of other units. There was no sense waiting around here. The tracker guide hadn’t reported in, in quite a while, and, with comms down, they had no way to locate him.
But leaving would be the captain’s call. Rok could only suggest it.
Chapter Three
The trio had announced they would leave at 6:45 p.m. Early evening made sense weatherwise—the June heat would start to subside, and hours of daylight would remain—but why not 6:30 or 7 p.m.?
With nothing to do except wait and grow anxious, Chloe decided to explore the house, which, up until now, she’d been hesitant to do out of good manners. A guest did not paw through her host’s private stuff. However, the real homeowners were dead, and the post-apocalypse squatters wouldn’t care, having demonstrated little attachment to the home. Besides, they wouldn’t notice anyway. Caleb was zoned out on video games, and, judging from the gasps and groans, Zack and Sandy were once again swapping bodily fluids.
Double the size of her parents’ home and at least five times larger than her apartment, the house had to be at least 5,000 to 6,000 square feet on two levels, with a generator hard-wired into the electrical panel.Besides the great room, it had a huge formal dining area, two laundry rooms—one down, one up—a media room, a wine cellar, a stunning office with built-in shelves stocked with hardbacks that had never been cracked open, and six bedrooms.
She peeked into the master, claimed by Caleb. Even from the doorway, the rumpled sheets on the king bed looked nasty. Had he ever laundered them? She shuddered, shut the door, and headed upstairs.
The second level had two guest bedrooms, an office, and a den. From the home and the personal effects, she’d deduced a family of five had lived here. Mom, dad, two daughters—one a teenager, the other a preteen—and grandma. The office and den were filled with photos of the smiling, happy family. Seeing them caused a wave of grief so intense, it felt like her parents, siblings, and boyfriend had perished yesterday, and she disintegrated into a body-wracking, ugly-cry. In an act of lunacy, she proceeded to swipe through the pictures on her phone and cried harder.
When the weeping ceased, she felt drained, wrung out, butbetter.I needed that.She hadn’t realized how much tension and grief she’d bottled up while on the run.
Grief she could suppress, but the fear never went away. Fear kept her moving. Sometimes, it clawed at her throat; other times, it receded to a dull ache, but it never fully dissipated.
She doubted she would feelsafeanywhere, but she feltsaferbeing in a group. People were not meant to be alone. After months of solitude, worrying that she might be the sole survivor, she had rejoined the living. Tonight, she’d reunite with four more people. But she couldn’t let elation distract her from vigilance.I must stay alert.
At the first hint of danger, she would make her own decisions, regardless of what the trio did. It concerned her a bit how chill they seemed sometimes. While vetting her, they seemed oblivious to the continuing threat. Just because no Progg had been spotted lately, didn’t mean they weren’t out there.
For the time being, she could take a breather and give her body a rest. She’d walked an average of twenty miles a day for months. Here with the trio, she had a roof over her head, a comfortable bed, warm showers, and air-conditioning. She’d been able to charge her phone, enabling her to view her photos and read the books she had downloaded before the apocalypse.Ialways wished I could finish my TBR list. Now I can. Be careful what you wish for.
After she finished her books, she could read the homeowner’s. She’d found the woman’s eReader and plugged it in to charge it. The lady of the house had liked romance novels, alien romances in particular.Bet she wouldn’t like them so much now!Real aliens were ruthless killers, not noble hunks as portrayed in fiction.
Chloe returned to the outer room to check on the trio. Caleb remained glued to another video game, but after heating up the sheets, Zack and Sandy were heating up lunch for themselves—canned chili with Vienna sausages added in.
“You okay?” Sandy peered at her. “You look like you’ve been crying.”
“I was thinking about my family. Looking at pictures.”
“It’s hard,” Sandy said. “You have—had—a big family?”
“Parents, an older brother, a younger sister, and a boyfriend.” And a cat. Poor Midnight.
“Same. I had an older brother, younger sister, too. Mom and Dad.”
“I lost my mom, granny, and a sister,” Zack said. “Caleb had a wife and a new baby.”
“How awful.” Losing a child had to be devastating, unbearable. She eyed Caleb, oblivious to the conversation.Maybe he uses video games to forget.With a surge ofempathy and compassion, she realized he probably hadn’t always been game-obsessed. “What kind of work did Caleb do?”
Nobody answered for a long moment while Zack and Sandy looked at each other. Had they never talked to Caleb? Finally, Zack said, “He counseled at-risk youth.”
She winced, envisioning Caleb grieving for the kids he’d tried to help who were now dead. That was atop the loss of his daughter and wife. “Rough.”
Until now, she’d pegged Caleb as an aimless, unemployed, entitled man-child of wealthy parents who couldn’t find a job paying the high salary his specialness deserved.Judgmental much?He’d been trying to compensate for a devastating loss. She was ashamed of herself.
“What did you two do?” she asked.
